divadab (#101): “@Elliot – no need to accuse me of lying – I’m finding your position difficult to pin down. You say you believe in AGW but attack 1) any attribution of climate change currently occurring to AGW and 2) any prediction of future AGW-caused climate events.“

The word “any” in both of those is completely your invention.

CO2 and other greenhouse gases have dramatically increased since the industrial revolution. That increase has raised global temperatures beyond the increase due to natural cycles. As emerging nations like China, India, etc. accelerate the addition of CO2, the increase in these gasses will have an additional warming effect, all other factors being equal.

The serious skeptics will agree to this, because it is based upon the relationship between CO2 and temperature, as measured and verified in laboratory experiments.

Note that this relationship is logarithmic, which means it tapers off. If you double the CO2 in the atmosphere, you get 1C of warming. To get 2C of warming, you need to quadruple the CO2 content. To get 3C warming, you need to increase CO2 eight fold.

When alarmists call the science “settled”, all they can honestly attach that word to is the logarithmic CO2 to global temperature function. However, many dishonestly pull the bait and switch tactic of starting with what is actually settled by scientific experimentation and substituting wild predictions which are not. Attempting to quash discussion by shouting “settled” or “consensus”, to drown out discussion of matters which are most assuredly not “settled” is anti-scientific. It’s the argument by authority (orthodoxy), the argument by popularity, or, eventually, the argument by force: agree or not, we will use political force to get what we want.

“Forgive me if I find this incoherent and, frankly, perverse.“

Your lack of clarity is not my fault.

“1) “Are you asserting that refugees of war are to be counted as “climate change refugees”?”
-Yes.“

So, this is just made-up stuff and actual, concrete facts don’t matter?

“2) “The Sahara Desert has been expanding and contracting for thousands of years, well before the start of AGW.”
-It’s been expanding and contracting for millions of years. No argument. But AGW is causing it to expand FASTER.“

Cite?

“This is the key point about AGW – it’s speeding up and exacerbating global warming and related climate change. DO you assert that refugees from the Sahara’s expansion are not climate change refugees? Or that because the Sahara has been expanding and contracting over the eons that somehow makes it ok that millions of humans are moving to greener pastures?“

I don’t know that the Sahara is, in fact, expanding. My trivial google search yielded a mixed bag of answers on that question, including the Nat Geo News cite I gave you that global warming may increase rainfall in the Sahara.

I’d like to know more. Since, as you acknowledge, the Sahara has been growing for centuries, but in a cyclic manner, well before the onset of AGW, attributing a particular crisis of people in a given region to anthropogenic causes seems problematic.

The key point is that the UN predicted millions of refugees by two years ago, and they haven’t materialized. Their prediction was wrong and no one seems to be holding them accountable for their false information, nor giving them less credence for further predictions.

“Your arguments are EXACTLY the same as climate change deniers.“

The term “climate change denier” is a meaningless one. Nobody asserts that the Earth’s climate is fixed, that there have never been ice ages, warming periods, and the like. Well, maybe some people who believe the Earth is a few thousand years old have such ignorant beliefs, but anyone with a serious scientific approach not only accepts that climate varies, and has varied for billions of years, but that human industry has affected temperatures.

The crux of the matter is: how much does human industry impact global temperatures?

Just calling people names like “deniers” when you don’t even specify what they deny is meaningless name calling.

When I call people “alarmists”, it’s specific. They raise the alarm, predicting catastrophic consequences which are not based upon solid scientific inquiry. Computer programs are not data. They may be a useful tool to help understand, a means to creating a metric by which to compare real, observed data. But they are not observations.

“Asserting that you believe in AGW, and then arguing that AGW is not causing mass human movements is IMHO an incoherent position.“

This is part of the “bait and switch”. We know there is AGW. We know that changing regional conditions, such as droughts, can cause famines and refugees. But you’re insisting, without making a rational argument, that any and all weather-related problems must be the fault of anthropogenic factors. So, the droughts and famines before 1900 were what? Divine punishments?

Sorry, but I need solid data to connect the dots.

“Franky, I think the human species is doomed. Ot may take 500 years, it may take 500,000 years, but until we overcome our ignorance and disrespect for the living planet that we are part of, we are fouling our own nest and only home.“

Long before the sun becomes a red giant and boils away the Earth, an asteroid, gamma-ray burst, or other similar catastrophe will likely devastate the Earth enough to exterminate human life. A caldera eruption, like Yellowstone, or the collapse of La Palma island generating a megatsunami, could wipe out hundreds of millions of lives within hours or days. No environmental conservation, nor WMD disarmament/containment, will matter at all when any of these completely natural events occur.

How arrogant to think that our factories have the power to destroy this massive world, or that our relatively puny efforts will ever avert extermination.

“There is no Planet B.“

Probably not, unless the problem of interstellar travel is ever overcome. Unless there are fantastic leaps in physics, the resources necessary to travel to other solar systems with enough living organisms and materials to colonize will always be extremely expensive, to the point of being impossible.

I don’t think humans will kill themselves off. Nature will likely settle that–and not out of some Gaia fantasy of a vindictive spirit, but simply through unfeeling random chance. Such events occur all the time in the universe, so why should we expect the Earth to be immune once humans become sentient?

Franky, I think the human species is doomed. Ot may take 500 years, it may take 500,000 years, but until we overcome our ignorance and disrespect for the living planet that we are part of, we are fouling our own nest and only home.

There is no Planet B.

Well, I wouldn’t use the word “Doomed” per se… but “Screwed”? Yeah. That’s the word I would use. And within a few thousand years, too. Our abuse of the soil will result in the mass die-off of most of humanity.

But at the same time? There is another dynamic going on… The Technological advancements we’re seeing allow for the same production levels with far fewer workers. Back in the day? You needed hundreds or thousands of workers to push buttons and turn valves. Today? A microprocessor and a motor can do that cheap. Back in the day? You needed an army of typists and draft persons to create documents. Today? Computer Software does that with ease.

The droids are here, and they are taking the jobs of all the people that will be rendered useless in the ongoing manufacturing revolution.

Society just doesn’t need all these people anymore. You see it happening now… people are taking “Service Sector jobs” because they can’t get jobs in their trained professions.

Manufacturing? CNC machines blast out parts for super cheap. This technology has completely supplanted “manual” machining. And it will just snowball from here.

The result? The earth just doesn’t need all these people. They won’t be able to get jobs. They will have to all be supported with tax dollars in the form of welfare, or be supported by their families.

]]>By: divadabhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/09/27/morning-links-681/comment-page-2/#comment-3892998
Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:19:03 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=26635#comment-3892998@Elliot – no need to accuse me of lying – I’m finding your position difficult to pin down. You say you believe in AGW but attack 1) any attribution of climate change currently occurring to AGW and 2) any prediction of future AGW-caused climate events. Forgive me if I find this incoherent and, frankly, perverse.

Now to your specific (non-insulting) points:

1) “Are you asserting that refugees of war are to be counted as “climate change refugees”?”
-Yes. What is the cause of the war but conflicts over scarce resources getting scarcer? Just as the Viking expansions were motivated by a cold period that made their nordic homeland less able to support their population. You’re confusing cause and effect. War is an effect, not a cause.

2) “The Sahara Desert has been expanding and contracting for thousands of years, well before the start of AGW.”
-It’s been expanding and contracting for millions of years. No argument. But AGW is causing it to expand FASTER. This is the key point about AGW – it’s speeding up and exacerbating global warming and related climate change. DO you assert that refugees from the Sahara’s expansion are not climate change refugees? Or that because the Sahara has been expanding and contracting over the eons that somehow makes it ok that millions of humans are moving to greener pastures?

Your arguments are EXACTLY the same as climate change deniers. Asserting that you believe in AGW, and then arguing that AGW is not causing mass human movements is IMHO an incoherent position.

3) I don;t disagree that there are a lot of alarmist predictions that are frightening the ignorant. MOst of these predictions are based on faulty perceptions of time. We humans live in our own time, not geologic time. So climate changes that unfold over generations are not well understood by people who when told that climate is changing, expect it to happen next year. I hope I don;t see most of the terrible effects in my lifetime that I believe are inevitable over the next few thousand years. But we are loading the dice in horrendous ways that are only increasing the speed of change.

Franky, I think the human species is doomed. Ot may take 500 years, it may take 500,000 years, but until we overcome our ignorance and disrespect for the living planet that we are part of, we are fouling our own nest and only home.

The Earth’s climate has changed, sometimes radically, but always in large cycles, for billions of years. The term “climate change” means nothing. Nobody sane denies climate change. And, as I agree that there is AGW, I’m not even denying that. So, the word “denier” is just a lie, a smear to try to associate scientific, rational skepticism with Holocaust denial.

“But still generally denialist.“

You cannot make an honest argument if you keep lying about anyone who has a disagreement. I stated, “You can believe in AGW. I do.”

That’s not “denialist”. That’s agreeing that global warming has occurred due to anthropogenic causes.

“Consider the number of refugees worldwide – in the middle east, at least 7 million people are living as refugees having fled their homes in Iraq, Palestine, Syria. In Myanmar, Bangla people have been burned out, killed, and pushed into camps.“

Are you asserting that refugees of war are to be counted as “climate change refugees”?

“In Mali, Senegal, and other sub-Saharan areas, people are fleeing South as the Sahara expands.“

The Sahara Desert has been expanding and contracting for thousands of years, well before the start of AGW. In fact, recent climate changes may actually be increasing rainfall in the Sahara (
Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?, James Owen, National Geographic News, July 31, 2009).

Droughts and famines have occurred with great regularity throughout recorded history.

“…this is just a harbinger IMHO of what’s to come.“

That’s what they said about Katrina. The hurricane seasons since then have mostly been below average. Certainly, the predicted hellish storms predicted as a result of “climate change” have yet to materialize.

“Easy to deny something that;s happening to someone else, eh?“

That’s not what’s happening, though, is it? I’m not denying things which actually have happened. The past is easily examined because we have measurements, verifiable data.

I question predictions of the future, particularly the more outrageous alarmist predictions. I expect more than the output of computer programs (particularly when the source code is secret). I expect reproducible experiments, transparency, and milestones at which scientists can compare predictions to measured results.

Anyone can predict what will happen a century from now. There’s no risk.

But when the alarmists have made near predictions and those predictions have failed, why keep paying attention to them?

Climate change deniers are an entertaining lot, but your views are at least informed and well-written. But still generally denialist. For example, you say “This is Y2K hysteria, with promised catastrophes always in the future. You can claim that there will soon be movements of starving people, yet again, but I don’t believe you. When I see verifiable data, I’ll believe that.”

Consider the number of refugees worldwide – in the middle east, at least 7 million people are living as refugees having fled their homes in Iraq, Palestine, Syria. In Myanmar, Bangla people have been burned out, killed, and pushed into camps. In Mali, Senegal, and other sub-Saharan areas, people are fleeing South as the Sahara expands. All these people are no longer able to feed themselves but rather rely on food aid, mostly from the US. CHeck it out – this is just a harbinger IMHO of what’s to come. You and I are among the fortunate minority who live in the US, a food exporter. Easy to deny something that;s happening to someone else, eh?

Radley – I based my idea the you were a climate-change denier on what you wrote in #67: “I hereby renounce my positions on both global warming and GMOs”. Glad you recognize the science on anthropogenic global warming.

As to GMO’s, as an eater of canola oil, the original GMO, I recognize that like any technology, genetic modification can be used for good or ill. We are greenhouse horticulturalists, and try to stay organic (which as any greenhouse grower knows, is hard in the humid, enclosed environment in a greenhouse). SO we use modern biological integrated pest management, which includes, for example, organic anti-fungals derived from knotweed and neem oil.

The bigger issue with GMO crops is the massive unsustainable monoculture based on spraying endocrine disrupting chemical pesticides. This stuff causes amphibians to become hermaphroditic – and I sure don;t want my kids eating it or exposed to it. Watch the film Food Inc. – there’s an interview with an Idaho potato farmer who admits he doesn’t feed his family the Monsanto potatoes he grows because of the pesticides – he grows his own potatoes in a garden using organic techniques! I feel sorry for this man and his moral dilemma – but consider how wrong it is to sell something to people to eat that you would not eat yourself!

ALso – monoculture is, biologically speaking, a huge risk. COnsider the Irish potato famine – an entire population relied for food on one variety of potato – which, when it was hit by a blight, resulted in a complete loss of staple food. And mass starvation and population movement. Exactly what WILL happen, sooner or later, as populations grow past the point of food supply, or food supply is reduced by climate change.

I don’t have answers to this terrible prospect other than to try to make sure that my little part of the world can sustain my family and clan and greater community. I’m doing the best I can.

General – “what we have here is a failure of communication” – much of your response is directed at your idea of what I might have said rather than what I said. You can argue with a straw man ’til the cows come home but I’d rather engage in a dialog.

Specific points:
1) Godwin’s law relates to bringing up Nazis – you invoke Godwin because I brought up Monsanto – perhaps you equate Monsanto and Nazism?
2) Sure, water is a chemical. One necessary to life. Your reductionist argument is absurd – that since water is a chemical, and chemicals bathe GMO food, GMO food must be OK !?!
You can eat endocrine disrupters like ROundup (which is relatively benign – classified as “slightly toxic” in its MSDS) or feed them to your own kids, because they are chemicals like water all you like but I won’t.
3) You accuse me of an “unhinged rant” – and then go on in an unhinged way yourself, inventing ignorant insults: “unhinged, scientifically-illiterate lunatics like yourself”. This is a classic ad hominum (lowest form of argument) – look it up because it’s a sure sign you don’t have a cogent argument.
4) finally, in a parting shot you postscript “I guess you’ll be really depressed 10 years from now when there is no mass worldwide starvation, huh?”. Another insult. And if you informed yourself better, rather than absorbing the corporatist media propaganda, you would know that there is already significant starvation in human populations in many regions – in sub-Saharan Africa in Mali and Senegal, for example, in North Korea, and in parts of the Indian sub-continent. And increasing the amount of farming based on unsustainable Monsanto-style chemical agriculture is a short-term shot in the arm (like meth) with bad long-term consequences.

divadab (#83) : “By all means argue about the climate data but try talking to the Iowa corn and soybean farmer whose yields are down +50% due to drought and 70 degree temperatures in February (!!!) and see what he says.“

Again, for those who are interminably deaf to basic meteorology: Climate is not weather. Weather is not climate. The record temperatures and droughts are regional phenomena. They are to be expected in any complex system and do not constitute a statistically significant rise the amount of droughts. The Dust Bowl was much worse and happened well before the vaunted “hockey stick” got past the taped portion of the handle.

I seem to recall Radley complaining about people mocking Al Gore for the hilarious coincidences between his visits and it unseasonably cold weather, particularly snow storms. No, that wasn’t proof that he was a charlatan. His pseudo-scientific sensationalism was evidence. The coincidental weather just added great mirth to spirit of lampooning that jet-setting owner of massive mansions who stands to gain a fortune with his carbon market scam. Al Gore is a carpetbagger, plain and simple.

Yes, AGW can be real and people like Al Gore can be frauds for cherry picking data, reversing causality between temperature and CO2 content, using bad science fiction movie footage in an alleged documentary, and putting up pictures of polar bears on small ice bergs to dishonestly suggest they were endangered. In point of fact, in parts of the arctic, governments encourage killing polar bears to prevent overpopulation.

divadab (#83) : “We’re about to see movements of starving people on an unprecedented scale in places like Sub-saharan africa and Bangladesh and northern china – and when (not if) we can no longer afford to send them food aid because we need to feed our own population, all hell will break loose.“

This is Y2K hysteria, with promised catastrophes always in the future. You can claim that there will soon be movements of starving people, yet again, but I don’t believe you. When I see verifiable data, I’ll believe that.

Predictions do not impress me, particularly when those making the predictions rely on the severity of the predictions to dishonestly scare readers into believing them.

Remember, they’ve also predicted one devastating hurricane season after another, and each time been flat wrong. Even Hollywood psychics who make yearly predictions probably have a higher percentage of being correct.

Human industry, particularly in developing countries in Asia and eventually in Africa will likely belch out huge amounts of CO2 and, even worse, harmful particulates in the coming decades. If Europe, the US, and Canada carpet bombed our fossil fuel power plants and factories, banned fossil fuel vehicles, and watched as Americans and those previously fed by US exports of food starved or reverted to abject poverty without modern technology, China, India, et al. would belch out plenty of CO2 to make our sacrifice moot.

Any curtailment of CO2 by human industry which is not global is useless. It’s one group sacrificing while the rest take advantage of their gullibility.

You can believe in AGW. I do. You can even play the bait-and-switch game of using the nonsense term “climate change” when global temperatures level off for a decade or so while atmospheric CO2 continues to rise, unabated. I expect that temperatures will probably begin to rise again, but possibly even fall, as natural cycles influence global temperature even more than the alarmists will ever admit. But when the predictions are made and the deadlines pass without evidence that the forecasts had any bearing on reality, at what point do you stop attacking people who are skeptical of the catastrophic alarmist claims (CAGW)? At what point do they stop being the evil Holocaust Deniers, the murderers of babies and poor people?

Use science, for fuck’s sake. Stop trying to scare the shit out of people.

A middle-of-the-road approach is the most rational, I believe. AGW but with a low probability of anything catastrophic or of a new ice age. The results will quite probably be very mundane, unsensational, and unworthy of ceding our rights to government.

For all those libertarians who are tempted to join the CAGW bandwagon and “do something” to save the world, just remember that if you calculate wrong and the drastic actions are not actually necessary, the politicians will never drop any new taxes, regulations, or other market controls (carbon markets and the like). They didn’t drop ethanol when that proved to be a bust because of the primaries starting in corn country. They haven’t stopped sugar tarriffs, even when they result in the crappy HFCS being substituted for real sugar due to price considerations. Hell, look at the Telephone Excise Tax, which started with the Spanish-American War. That albatross inflated your phone bills up until 2006.

Even better, consider:

“The Environmental Protection Agency has slapped a $6.8 million penalty on oil refiners for not blending cellulosic ethanol into gasoline, jet fuel and other products. These dastardly petroleum mongers are being so intransigent because cellulosic ethanol does not exist. It remains a fantasy fuel. The EPA might as well mandate that Exxon hire Leprechauns.“

(google that cite, I can’t add another URL without triggering the canned meat filter)

Even if you want to save the world, giving politicians the power to control us and take more of our productive efforts is not the answer.

]]>By: demize!http://www.theagitator.com/2012/09/27/morning-links-681/comment-page-2/#comment-3886329
Sat, 29 Sep 2012 01:59:36 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=26635#comment-3886329“Until about the last 100 years, the primary objective each day of nearly every human in history was to avoid starvation.” This is a hackneyed and unverifiable peice of conjecture about preindustrial life. You can neither prove nor disprove this because of the broad absurdity of the statement itself. Stop being the stereotype of a vulgar libertarian that liberals make you out to be. You’re better than that.
]]>By: Bobhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/09/27/morning-links-681/comment-page-2/#comment-3886241
Sat, 29 Sep 2012 01:31:17 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=26635#comment-3886241#81: Brandon

Radley, Bob=Luvsbob=Crazybob

Nope. I’ve ONLY used the name “Bob”. I have no idea who these other people are, but they’re not me. I moved from Virginia to Missouri recently, so my IP has changed… but I assure you, I’m just Bob.

#84: Jeff W

#82 divabob…

Reading comprehension for the win! That person’s name is DIVADAB, not DIVABOB. Really. You made this mistake over and over again. Scientist, huh? So, do you work for Monsanto? That’s the kind of mistake I’d expect from a Monsanto scientist.

Radley, you are putting WAY too much faith in GMOs and the “science” that backs them up. The word I would use for this is “Naive”. When you control every aspect of the implementation of a technology, you control the spin of it’s information as well.

Let’s go back a bunch of posts to the Yellow Dent Corn post (post 64.) Sure, It’s so safe! That is… assuming we completely comprehend every aspect of every chemical process involved in the mechanics of increasing the yield of corn by 400%. Guess what! WE DO NOT. In fact, we have no fucking clue. We’re just running and gunning here. And at the same time we’re requiring (Through government programs) farmers to use the GMO strains just to break even. Nice, huh? Are you REALLY FUCKING SURE you want to back GMOs?

“Hell, just look out your window. Or travel to India, China, or Sub-Saharan Africa. The only reason they exist is because six countries (USA, Canada, Argentina, France, Australia, Thailand) have enough extra land to provide 90% of the world’s grain exports. Sure, the US can probably feed itself sustainably…but we can’t feed the rest of the world that way, too. And we’d need at least three extra Earths if we wanted every one of the seven billion to enjoy the same lifestyle you and I now enjoy.”

]]>By: Elliothttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/09/27/morning-links-681/comment-page-2/#comment-3886181
Sat, 29 Sep 2012 01:13:22 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=26635#comment-3886181Incidentally, if anyone is interested in how a bona fide libertarian approaches matters in a more consistently principled manner, check of Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog. He is also author of a climate skeptic blog and a park privatization blog. He writes for Forbes, as well.

On climate science, watch his video “Catastrophe Denied”, which delves into the mathematics of positive feedbacks and negative feedbacks.

The very idea that Meyer, Watts, and other skeptics are anything like the GMA opponents is ludicrous.

]]>By: Elliothttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/09/27/morning-links-681/comment-page-2/#comment-3886151
Sat, 29 Sep 2012 01:04:52 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=26635#comment-3886151Incidentally, this is the sort of thing you seem to be advocating when you support carbon taxes:

“A key component of California’s landmark greenhouse gas emissions law would impose enormous costs on businesses at a time when the state’s economy is sputtering, oil refiners, manufacturers and others said Thursday.

“Fees from the state’s pending cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions amount to a $1 billion-a-year tax increase on about 500 businesses in the state, the California Air Resources Board was told.“

California is hemorrhaging companies. Do you honestly think this sort of thing is justified? Do you think this will do anything but harm the California economy, making the state government completely unsustainable?

Imagine the horrific economic devastation if this were put into effect nationwide. It’s economic suicide.

Nothing about that is libertarian. It’s either Marxist or nihilism.

]]>By: Elliothttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/09/27/morning-links-681/comment-page-2/#comment-3886108
Sat, 29 Sep 2012 00:52:45 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=26635#comment-3886108Incidentally, comparing the hysterical paranoia over GMA crops to skepticism over catastrophic AGW is total crap. The former remind me of the truthers, birthers, contrailers, etc..

The serious skeptics do not deny AGW. They challenge the scientific basis for alarmist claims, and for good reasons.

Just as anyone in government who raises the idea that medical marijuana may be worth investigating is silenced by the DEA reefer madness goons, or people who oppose the Patriot Act are shouted down, anyone who offers factual, scientific counterarguments to the holy green religion is ostracized, compared to Holocaust deniers, etc..

You should be better than to take part in that sort of thing, to compare good, honest people to conspiracy nuts.